July 01, 2016

Bert Cooper’s life used to be great,
until his sister turned out to be a traitor. Now Bert feels the whole pack
looks on him with doubt and suspicion. To prove his loyalty, he volunteers to
be the first ambassador at Fey Court, gathering information to finally solve
the Leader Murders and punish those plotting against the Council and community.
At least, that was the plan….

When Bert meets Sir William Matthew Sims,
Court Interrogator, and one hell of a sexy man, life becomes a balancing act.
And when the Fey King is assassinated, things become really messy.

Pack politics, fey politics, treason,
suspicions of treason…. Bert has to choose between being ruled by his fears or
standing up for what—and who—he believes in. And it might just break his heart.

“Would you take me in as a trophy, Bert?” he asked,
smiling oddly, a sort of indulgent look in his eyes.

I wasn’t going to outsmart him, that was for sure.
Luckily I didn’t think I had to.

“I wouldn’t be taking you in at all. You and your kids
would simply accompany me. I’m sure you can find something of value to offer me
so I’ll be willing to go that way. And then you’d find something of value to
offer Weiss and the Council to give you guys, say, political asylum?”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure you did. I don’t think you’re a
fool, Will. I’m sure you’re not, in fact. So I’m giving you the courtesy of not
treating you as one. A courtesy I hope you’ll give me too.”

“Implying that I have not so far?” he asked, stepping
toward me again.

My pulse spiked. “I wasn’t implying that at all.”

We were face-to-face, a step apart at most. My mind
stuttered over the few stray thoughts I managed to recognize. It was unusual
someone’s presence would affect me this much, this soon. Was he that special?
Was our chemistry that special? Or was he using some sort of spell on me? I
didn’t think that was beneath him. Magic wasn’t beneath any magic-wielding fey,
just like changing into a wolf wasn’t beneath me as werewolf. It was a natural
part of who we were. I just wasn’t that used to his natural part, and the very
idea made me smile.

“What could I offer you that you’d like to have?” he
asked as his breath touched my face with every word he uttered.

“Oh, I could think of several things,” I replied.

He leaned toward me. His lips brushed against mine now
when he spoke. “I could think of several things I’d like to offer you as well.”

I gulped. Shit, I couldn’t think with my dick. Not now
at least. I so wanted to. It would be so easy to whisper it sweetly: “Fuck my
brains out and I’ll be on your side.” But I wasn’t here for shits and giggles,
so I couldn’t. There was no reason I couldn’t hope I’d get a fuck out of the
situation somewhere down the line. The more time we spent together, the better
chance of that happening. That was pretty solid motivation to spin things in a
way that would benefit us all in the end. There. I wasn’t doing this for my
selfish fuck-greedy self but for the greater good. I was a fucking
humanitarian, feyitarian, whateveritarian.

“I’ll only ask for one small thing for myself,” I
whispered softly.

He brushed his lips against mine. The touch sent
little fiery thrills down my nerve endings, from the skin of my lips right to
the pulsing muscle of my heart. I felt his breath hitch at the contact, and the
idea it might affect him almost as much as it was affecting me sent a shiver
down my spine. We could have been faking it, both of us. This was a negotiation
of sorts, and now was the time to bring on our top game. But I felt it in my
gut that this connection was real, that it wasn’t bullshit for either one of
us. I just knew it in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if he knew it too, as
clearly as I did right in that instant.

His scent didn’t assault my senses since he’d been
hanging out in my personal space for a while now. My senses were bathed in his
scent already. But I could feel the pounding of his heart as I deepened the
kiss; I could feel his muscles clench and unwind with sensual tension while my
body sang with it. Fuck me sideways, I wanted him right now. I wanted him so
bad it almost gutted me. The feel of him languidly moving his tongue against
mine made my blood turn into liquid fire, scalding my insides and bringing up
my body temperature to heights I didn’t think I’d felt before after just
kissing. Everything in my body screamed, This.
This is it. This is what you’ve been waiting for, for so fucking long!

“What do you want?” he asked after he pulled back, his
forehead leaning against mine.

Fuck, fuck it, fuck! “I
want all the information you can get from the Archives on a certain topic.”

This book was provided to me via Pride
promotions in exchange for an honest review.

This is the third book in the series
and it must be read in order. It won’t make sense as a standalone.

The world in this book is complex
and unconventional. Even though it’s a paranormal book involving shapeshifters,
it’s not a typical paranormal book. Just as in the other books in this series,
Bert and Will have to put in a lot of work and trust to make their relationship
work.

Bert isn’t the typical protagonist,
either. He’s chubby, loves to cook, and eat his sweets. Still, he’s looking for
love but afraid to open up and become vulnerable.

I couldn’t always get a read on Will,
but since he’s fey and good at hiding his emotions, that was fine by me. I really
liked his devotion to his children.

This book lives from the
world-building and the emotions between the characters. For fans of the series,
it’s an absolute must-read as you’re also going to see the couples from the
first two books again.

Definitely recommended!

Meet
the author:

Liv Olteano is a voracious reader, music
lover, and coffee addict extraordinaire. And occasional geek. Okay, more than
occasional.

She believes stories are the best kind of
magic there is. And life would be horrible without magic. Her hobbies include
losing herself in the minds and souls of characters, giving up countless nights
of sleep to get to know said characters, and trying to introduce them to the
world. Sometimes they appreciate her efforts. The process would probably go
quicker if they’d bring her a cup of coffee now and then when stopping by.
Characters—what can you do, right?

Liv has a penchant for quirky stories and
is a reverent lover of diversity. She can be found loitering around the Internet
at odd hours and being generally awkward and goofy at all times.

June 08, 2016

Sidenote: I've read the story before it went through editing and I totally loved it! Vinnie and Ethan are an adorable couple and there'll be more books to come with these two. :)

Author Name: Julie
Lynn Hayes

Book Name: Bad
Dogs and Drag Queens

Series: Rose and
Thorne

Book: One

Release
Date: May 25, 2016

Blurb:

Vinnie Delarosa and Ethan Thorne are
partners—on and off the clock. Federal undercover detectives, they’re part of a
covert task force designed to promote goodwill between the feds and local
authorities. They lend an unobtrusive helping hand wherever it’s needed. No
credit required.

Vinnie and Ethan work primarily in the
Southeast region of the United States and live together in Richmond, Virginia.
A mugger problem brings them to Roanoke, where Vinnie is thrown out as bait to
catch the man who’s been snatching purses in a city park, but they end up with
more than they bargained for. Why is Vinnie always the one who has to wear the
dress? Ethan says it’s because Vinnie looks much prettier in a skirt. How can
he argue with that?

Expecting to return to Richmond afterward,
Vinnie and Ethan find themselves assigned a new case instead. They are to go
undercover at The Stroll, one of the biggest gay nightclubs in Roanoke. Someone
is terrorizing both the customers and the performers. Could they be dealing
with a hate crime? Someone has to protect the drag queens of Roanoke, so it’s
Vinnie and Ethan to the rescue!

The
author is donating 10% of the royalties from this book to No Kid Hungry.
Visit nokidhungry.org for more information about this organization.

Pages or Words: 50,000
words

Categories: Crime
Fiction, Fiction, Gay Fiction, Humor, Romance

Excerpt:

“Remind me again whose stupid
idea this lipstick was,” I huffed under my breath. Without thinking, I licked
my lips. They felt greasy, and tasted even worse. I forced myself not to
grimace, afraid it might crack the foundation I’d slathered on my face.

“Fuck you,” I growled. “You
should be doing this, not me, and you know it. I did it last time.”

And the time before that. And
the time before that. Wait, did I
detect a pattern here?

“What I know is you look
better in a skirt than I do. And you look damn good out of it too.”

My cheeks filled with heat at
Ethan’s words. Luckily the darkness hid a multitude of sins, my embarrassment
being the least of them. Hopefully, no one else was listening—I knew I’d never
hear the end of it. Just what I needed—to be the object of ridicule of the
Roanoke PD.

How did I
come up with the book and the title?

A friend of
mine, Denise, told me about a group on FB which posted pictures to inspire a
weekly 500 word flash. I thought it sounded like fun, and I gave it a try. So
far, I’ve written three flashes, inspired by three different pictures. One
picture was taken from the perspective of someone inside a trunk, looking up at
someone standing outside, looking in. That clicked with me, and I wrote a 500
word flash entitled Roadside Assistance.

The flash was
about two undercover cops who are partners, on and off the clock. I didn’t even
give these guys names, because it was so short. But afterward, my friend Chris
T. Kat told me she’d like to see more of those two guys. Before I knew it, they
had names and backgrounds, and I was writing their first book.

The title
didn’t come right away, but was inspired by a poem, Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
Except I made it Bad Dogs and Drag Queens, to fit my story. The rest, as they
say is history. I’m attaching the picture which inspired my story, and the
flash story itself. I hope you enjoy it! Someday, this will become one of the
actual books in the series.

Thanks for
having me here today, Chris!

Roadside Assistance by Julie Lynn Hayes

“I said get in the fucking trunk!” Chip growled.

I shrank back against the car. The door
handle jabbed my ass, painfully, and I winced. I hadn’t taken Chip seriously
the first time he’d spoken the words. Now, I was starting to think he just
might mean it.

“W-what the hell, dude, you need to chill
out.” My words sounded braver than I felt, and stuttering wasn’t helping a damn
thing. Chip was mad, and I knew it, but it was just so ridiculous. All because
I’d happened to notice a stranger at the gas station. A cute guy in a white
T-shirt and rumpled jeans. Probably a traveler, just like us.

So what?

So maybe Chip was just a tad on the
sociopath side, and just maybe he intended to dump me somewhere on the side of
the road. One thing I’d noticed, ever since we started driving through Florida,
was the tons of water situated beside the highway. Lakes, ponds, swamps, even
the ocean. A guy could go missing out here. Like permanently.

And suddenly I realized I didn’t know Chip
very well at all. Guess that’ll teach me not to take up with the first
good-looking guy who wants to take me for a drive.

“I’m not going to tell you again.” This
time I saw the knife in his hand. The blade glinted wickedly in the bright
sunlight.

I glanced desperately around me, but no one
was there. We might as well have been standing in a ghost town. Even the cute
stranger was nowhere to be seen. I gulped, forcing liquid into my too-dry
mouth, looked between Chip and the open trunk, then crawled inside. He almost
hit me when he slammed the lid, plunging me into darkness.

The ride was excruciating. It felt like he
deliberately found every pothole and rut he could. All I could do was lie
there, cramped and aching, waiting for him to stop… and then what?

I wondered if Chip had done this before.
Did he have a usual spot where he took his victims? A dumping ground of sorts?
He seemed the type that just might. In the short time I’d known him I’d noticed
he was methodical that way. Not one for loose ends.

I was feeling more than a little
claustrophobic by the time the car stopped, almost grateful for the lack of
motion. I say almost because I knew what would come next. Wasn’t exactly
looking forward to it. I braced myself for the worst.

When the lid lifted, I squinted up… into
the handsome face of my partner.

“Comfy in there?” He grinned, deliberately
flexing the muscles inside his form-fitting shirt.

I growled as he handed me out. I spied
Chip, in cuffs, by a squad car.

“Took you long enough—“ His kiss stopped my
rant.

“But I got here, and we just caught the
Florida Mangler. You complaining?”

Julie
Lynn Hayes first began publishing short stories and poetry in the 1990’s, when
it was a different ballgame altogether, and Ebooks hadn’t been dreamed of yet.
That changed in 2010 with the acceptance of her first romance novel. She’s come
a long way since that first book appeared, and is finding the journey a very
educational one.

She
lives in St. Louis with her daughter Sarah and her cat Ramesses. She often
writes of two men finding true love and happiness in one another’s arms, and is
a great believer in the happily ever after. She likes to write in different
genres, to stretch herself in order to see what is possible. Her great
challenge is to be told something can’t be done—she feels compelled to do it.

When
she isn’t writing, she enjoys crafts, such as crocheting and cross stitch,needlepoint and knitting, and she loves to
cook, spending time watching the Food Network. Her favorite chef is Geoffrey
Zakarian. Her family thinks she’s a bit off, but she doesn’t mind. Marching to
the beat of one’s own drummer is a good thing, after all. Her published works
can be found at Dreamspinner Press, eXtasy Books, and Wayward Ink Press.